Sofa comments on the recent declaration of emergency on North Carolina.Observations:
The American Constitution is dead.
Expired. Ceased to be. An ex-constitution.
Face that fact, please, with courage.
And don't confuse "process" with "endstate".
The USC/BoR were ratified by the Founding Generation with a desired endstate of
- restraining the Federal Government, and
- guaranteeing certain enumerated rights (along with all other human rights under natural law theory; see Amendment 9) to the citizens of the new country.
The document has failed in both objectives (restraint and guarantee).
As you contemplate the challenging future, think hard about and decide on first principles, then work on process and documentation.
Tactical sloganeering is one thing, as is meeting potential supporters where they are today.
Sound strategic analysis and planning are completely different exercises, however.
Lose your illusions.
Or accept having those illusions used against you, even unto your destruction.
Tempus fugit.
Expired. Ceased to be. An ex-constitution.
Face that fact, please, with courage.
And don't confuse "process" with "endstate".
The USC/BoR were ratified by the Founding Generation with a desired endstate of
- restraining the Federal Government, and
- guaranteeing certain enumerated rights (along with all other human rights under natural law theory; see Amendment 9) to the citizens of the new country.
The document has failed in both objectives (restraint and guarantee).
As you contemplate the challenging future, think hard about and decide on first principles, then work on process and documentation.
Tactical sloganeering is one thing, as is meeting potential supporters where they are today.
Sound strategic analysis and planning are completely different exercises, however.
Lose your illusions.
Or accept having those illusions used against you, even unto your destruction.
Tempus fugit.
"The document has failed in both objectives (restraint and guarantee)."
ReplyDeleteThe documents haven't failed anything. Those elected and charged with protecting and administrating those documents are the ones who have failed. Them, and a majority of those who put them in office and then abdicated their responsibility to train and supervise them properly.
OK C.A. I will be working on a reply this and a couple of other posts you have here about the FAILURE of The Constitution and it´s being Dead and a Illusion from the very Start. This will take me some time as I am a Little new at righting,But I will do the best I can to show You and a couple of others here and at Sipsey Street that the Basic Principles of the Constitution are or were the Best example of Self Government that had been righten up to that time. You actually pointed out the Inability of the AoC to protect the Fledgling Republic after the Revolution A FATAL FLAW, THEN JUST AS IT WOULD BE NOW.
ReplyDeleteYou do see the World as it is around you don´t you. The Nazi Party, Aryan Nation, Black Panthers, La Raza to name a couple of home grown extremist gropes that would be a danger to Freemen anywhere. And then there is the International Flavors of Extremist in the World Al Qaeda, Hamas two name two of the Islamic variety.not to metion our neighbors to the south many of whomm would like to have Texas to California going north to Oregon Back as they feel as thought these states were stolen from them. In order to Get Free of the Tyrants that ¨Would¨ be in Washington and Various State Capitols. We must be able to Maintain a secure place for that Freedom and Liberty so many wish to Talk About, but few Realize the Personal Sacrifices that will have to be made to Keep that Freedom safe from external Tyrants that would be more than happy to divide what will be left after any so called RESTORATION to the Constitution or TO LIBERTY if that tastes better for you.
Huh? This was a non event, no guns were confiscated. Seems like you're making a mountain out of a molehill here.
ReplyDeleteI don't mean this as trolling although it may come across that way, but, what about Vanderboegh's "no more free Katrinas"?
ReplyDeleteIsn't this exactly such a situation? Isn't this a tripwire for him?
No, I don't expect him to go marching off to the Carolinas playing "Yankee Doodle". The point is that it is exactly the sort of thing people keep saying will happen and he dismisses: the government transgressions are slow enough and marginal enough that no single one is sufficient to cause the spark, but each one sets a precedent making the next one easier.
It would not be unreasonable to expect more decrees like this, and also to expect that no individual case will be the "right" tripwire for the 3% - at least until we are well past the point where bans like this are comparatively normal in crisis areas.
Good points but one thing left out. The document did not fail. A document can't do anything, hence, a document cannot fail. The people, who were to honor the intent of the document (or alter it if they preferred) failed. They did not honor it. They did not enforce it. They (and we) who had a workable plan for a republic given to us, with all the heavy lifting done, failed to maintain it. We shall pay a heavy price to reclaim it, and even more to replace it with a better one.
ReplyDeleteFolks defied the ban in NC in droves. Their open, defiant action speaks volumes.
ReplyDeleteIt also provides a quick litmus test for those claiming to be 2A or "liberty" activists:
Do you approve of the actions taken by some citizens in NC, who deliberately violated the recent emergency gun transport ban? Would you have violated the transport ban if you knew you would not be caught?
I'm in 100% agreement with your accessment on the Constitution.
ReplyDeleteSeveral years ago I asked an acquaintance of mine, a US Navy captain, if he thought that the US government would continue to operate as is even if the Constitution was suspended by voters (were that possible). He stated that, in his opinion, the US government would reject any curbs of that sort and would continue as it is now without missing a beat.
Sadly,I think he's correct.
Last, we have an issue right here in up country South Carolina. Yesterday, the Greenville County council had a first reading of a county ordinance to adopt the UN standard building, inspection, and maintenance code for local control. That may not seem severe, but it's tiny inroads such as this from which huge, leviathan state control springs.
We're going to hammer that notion into dust on the anvil of freedom, no matter what needs to happen.
I find that I disagree infrequently with the III Community. I have drawn my lines in the sand, and I have codified my strategy and tactics in public. I have advocated who to target when it begins, whatever it may be.
ReplyDeleteBut the reality is simple: Voting works. It is the voters of the nation who put these politicians in office. There is a sea of people in America who agree with Liberalism and all paths leading Left. That's a sad fact.
The politicians the Right has put in office are every bit as self-serving as the idiots on the Left. That's our fault.
It's also the fault of my fathers generation, and his fathers, and so on. They could have murdered this in its infancy, but they did not.
The Constitution is the finest document ever written for the Liberty of Man - but it MUST fail if we do not do our part. Every one of the Founders and Framers knew that wicked men would be drawn to Government. They warned us. They wrote the document with every tool we need today to restore the republic: Voting, Treason, and the Second Amendment.
But even if we do step up and cull the herd of those who would be our Masters, our children and theirs will face the same wicked men who will seek power through Government. If they let them in, they will one day find themselves in the same position we face today.
Draft men like MV and Pete and David at War on Guns into office! Pay their bills and vote them in. Outnumber the genetic garbage of the Left. MV as Governor would never THINK of infringing Liberty. But, as yet, no one has bothered to put him in office.
Vote. (Tool #1)
Hang the wannabe Masters (Tool #2 - Treason)
Shoot straight and plant 'em under the corn. (Tool #3)
Sam
III
http://www.breitbart.tv/hillary-un-remains-single-most-important-global-institution/
ReplyDelete"Co-president" during Waco, now Secretary of State. Some consequences.
http://www.breitbart.tv/blogger-faces-racism-charges-for-warning-glenn-beck-rally-visitors-to-stay-out-of-some-dc-neighborhoods/
ReplyDeleteWhen they say "faces charges," do they mean accusations or actual actionable legal sanctions?
Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton says people coming onto DC with attitudes like that... heck, everyone there just gets along.
Daniel, Good God Bless the people of N.C.
ReplyDeleteAnd if anyone is interested I posted a commentary about the so called Dead Constitution it is way to long for a comment.
So if you care to see it go to 1-4 Liberty and see ¨The Constitution is Dead,Since When? I think I make a fairly good argument, but you judge for your self. Just link through the dennis308 header, to
1-4 Liberty.
Dennis
III
Texas
"Each act, each occasion, is worst than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for the one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join you in resisting somehow...In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next...And one day, TOO LATE, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self deception has grown too heavy." (Emphasis mine, quoted in Joseph Martino's "Resistance to Tyranny", an excellent book.)
ReplyDeleteThis was written by Henry May, about the Nazi tightening of the noose in Germany.
I know I posted this on another comment thread, but it is relevant.
Earlier quote:
"The documents haven't failed anything. Those elected and charged with protecting and administrating those documents are the ones who have failed."
So, by definition, since it has not been able to prevent "Those elected and charged with protecting and administrating those documents" from ruining the system with their failures, it HAS failed.
It was supposed to protect us against such, right? The Constitution was supposed to protect our liberties against governmental tyranny and incompetence. It hasn't.
So, logically, only two conclusions are possible:
1. It failed.
2. It was never designed to do what we've been told it does.
or...
3. (I know I said two, but humor me here...) It is working perfectly, and the citizens' ultimate check and balance is soon coming to a neighborhood near you, meaning that the 14 million guns sold recently were sold for a reason.
One way or the other, we're coming up on the point of no return as far as our liberties go. Unless it's already too late.
Justin
Anon 9:46, just because the law wasn't enforced THIS time...
ReplyDeleteIt also authorizes mayors and county governments to impose curfews and other curtailments of civil rights when they declare a local emergency. This was done in King County, NC during a snowfall (never amounted to the predicted storm) last winter.
This isn't like those silly laws still on the books about not hitching your donkey to a city lamppost or spitting tobacco juice on the sidewalk. This deals with an essential right. It demonstrates the height of arrogance and mistrust of leaders of the people who elected them. If they can suspend the Second Amendment, they can suspend any of them. Warrantless searches and seizures and basless arrests, anyone?
Here's one NC official who would have been tasked with enforcing the gun prohibition. Ha. An embezzler.
http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/8257047/
This much was already clear by mid-19th century:
ReplyDelete"But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain – that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist."
~ Lysander Spooner, No Treason, 1867
The North Carolina Sheriffs Association wants access to a list of state residents who've been PRESCRIBED strong pain meds.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newsobserver.com/2010/09/08/669723/lists-of-pain-pillpatients-sought.html
There is one circumstance that obtains in NC during the State of Emergency - after Katrina we know that any LEO coming your way is likely to seize your weapons...unless you convince him otherwise.
ReplyDeleteFor those of you in NC, would you kill him as a matter of self defense if he tried to confiscate YOUR weapons?
I think it morally justified. But LEO & the Courts will surely disagree...
Sam
III
Kerodin, completely justified.
ReplyDeleteOK C.A. her is the reply I promised you 9-08-10@ 8:49
ReplyDeleteit is also a posting I have done.
When ¨The Government¨ Betray´s ¨We The People¨by surpassing the authority that has been vested to them by the ¨Law of The Land¨ other wise known as ¨The Constitution of The United States of America¨ What are we to do in regards to this Government that is --¨No Longer Our Own¨.
This is a REPUBLIC. Is it not? The Rule of Law Applies to The Government even MORE so than any individual. Because the Rule of Law (COTUS) makes That Government Legitimate or Not.
So is it that The Constitution has Failed the People of the United States or is it maybe that we The People have Failed the Constitution.
It was Benjamin Franklin that said upon exiting the Continental Convention when asked by a Lady outside the convention as to what they had given us he replied,
¨A Republic,Madam If You Can Keep it.¨
It was with These Words that whose Duty it was to Protect What are Defined. If we and our forefathers before us have not Fought for their Rights and Liberty as described in the Constitution then I ask You Who or What has Failed to Protect the Other.
Dennis
III
Texas
Which way are you facing?
Kerodin, after New Orleans, I'm ready to go where OTHER people's
ReplyDeleteguns are being taken. When they come to MY door, there won't be much I can do except make it as expensive as possible for them, so we've got to hang together on this.
Thinking ahead to whatever future gun rights hell they have planned, replacing what they seize will be difficult or impossible, and registered at any rate.
They've had their one bite.
An American's letter to his/her congressional "representatives" about the intrusive nature of health care reform. You WILL provide your driver's license number and your ethnicity information, and you WILL have a BMI (body mass index, fat percentage analysis?) to be included in your dossier -- I mean electronic medical record.
No, I won't.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2587321/posts
It is horrible what is happening in this country.
ReplyDeleteIt is pathetic that as soon as a disaster occur's - those with the power choose to take rights away from citizen's.
It is really sad....
Rourke
ModernSurvivalOnline.com